|
Officially, the ranch also served as Sergei's home. The top floor of the main mansion had been converted into a totally self- contained apartment, his inner sanctuary within the oasis. Often he spent his mornings there, having breakfast with is wife. The third floor features another balcony, also facing the lake. On clear winter days the railway station can be seen from the balcony, and on hot days it can serve as a place for having tea, combined with lengthy discussions. These things happened frequently.
Once Sergei lamented to Laara that he was facing great difficulties in keeping his veil of secrecy in place. "Most of our people at the center are kindly inclined and considerate in their private affairs." He had paused and reached for a piece of cake that day to have with the tea. "But as soon as they pass through the gate into the strategic center they become 'cool-headed' planners and suppress their human sensitivities. I find it harder and harder to persuade them to pull back and think as human beings with human feelings. The hardest part is, that it must be done without me directly ordering them to do so."
"Perhaps they may not be aware that they are losing touch with their own nature," Laara replied. "Many men have cut themselves off from humanity and encapsulated themselves in a dream world that is not in tune with the nature of a human being. I don't think your men at the center have the faintest notions of what monstrous games against themselves they have become involved in."
"They built mathematical models," Sergei replied, "to analyze the stress/terror balance and calculate a security index from which they determine a numeric representation of deterrence. The whole process is then subjected to critical path analysis to define the size and types of the required weapons to match the country's political aims."
"You would have done better to employ women," Laara grinned. "Woman are less torn by sexual urgencies than men, they would react from a different basis, we might never have had an arms race. Even if men would find it possible to be more true to their nature, which has made the human species such a successful survivor, we wouldn't be in this mess of threatening to blow each other off the face of the Earth!"
Sergei grinned back at her; "You are joking of course."
She just shook her head; "You don't even know what I am talking about, do you?"
"All that I know," said Sergei, "is, when the pressure mounts at the center, it is nearly impossible to maintain a level of sanity befitting a human being."
Laara just nodded.
"If I bring them to the ranch for a man to man talk," Sergei added, "the men become angry with me and restless. The back to nature perspective doesn't help anymore."
"You don't know what your nature is," Laara said sadly and turned away. "You insist on suppressing it. You simply don't know anymore!"
While waiting for his connection to NORAD, the feeling grew on Sergei that Laara might have been right. It was obvious that the ranch hadn't helped much, except to keep his position a mystery. Still he hated the feminist movement even more than his own bunch. The feminists hadn't done anything for their own ranks, but stir up trouble. Sergei was a practical man, interested in results. That's why the thought that he may have failed in his assessments, which now weighed so heavily on him, especially now that the world might be called upon to pay the price for his failing. This was the undeniable, practical reality that stared him in the face.
A beep from the terminal indicated that the call routing system had accepted Peter's telephone request, and that the request was now cued, pending security clearance. This was a normal response, but still, time consuming nonsense, as far as he was concerned. Time was critical now!
Next Page
|| - page index -
|| - chapter index -
|| - Exit -
||
 |
Stories about
War
from novels by Rolf A. F. Witzsche
|
|
|